Garth, teams usually avoid arbitration for two reasons:
1. It could potentially create a bad relationship between the player and the team (at the organizational level).
2. The "independent" arbitrators usually favor the players, giving them most if not nearly all of what they want.
Having Reinhart is good but the Sabres really need a solid goalie, as well as for defensemen like Dahlin to really step up and lead the defense.
Also you remind me of Comcast and the KGB. Comcast re-branded its product as "XFinity" because of the bad reputation the name "Comcast" has, particularly with regard to customer support. Likewise the KGB had five or six previous names, which changed each time its reputation for evil (kidnapping, blackmail, murder, general terror, etc.) got too bad.
In every case, only the name changed
. You can only fool people for a little bit, especially if nothing else changes.
